Weekend Edit: what’s on in Canberra

HerCanberra Team

Your essential guide to what’s on in Canberra this weekend!

Every Monday for more than five years, we’ve published This Week in The Can – but sometimes it’s just too epic to get through! That’s why we’ve introduced our Weekend Edit… Here are 10 things you shouldn’t miss!

10 THINGS NOT TO MISS

WINTER FESTIVAL

Celebrate Canberra’s winter season at the National Portrait Gallery’s annual Winter Festival. Glenn Smith will be creating a larger than life ice sculpture; Etcetera Duo will return with their eclectic mix of comedy, mime, magic and illusion. There will be participatory artwork on an epic scale along with a winter inspired fun activities.

CBR BRAVE

The CBR BRAVE take on the Melbourne Ice in a double header at Phillip Ice Skating rink this weekend. Games start at 5:30pm on Saturday 6 and 5pm on Sunday 7 August. Tickets online from cbrbrave.com.au.

CANBERRA SCAVENGER HUNT

Think Amazing Race meets Treasure Hunt meets walking-tour-on-Red-Bull and you have the Canberra Scavenger Hunt. Explore the city finding tricky clues and performing witty challenges, while searching for hidden gems even the locals don’t know about.

Bring a whole team (3-5 racers) or go as a solo or pair and you’ll be teamed up with some other hunters.

Take some time out for joy, happiness and adventure as life doesn’t have to be too serious.

Meet in front of Canberra Glassworks, 11 Wentworth Ave, Kingston.

Then head off on a madcap race around town, finding clues, talking to strangers, making human pyramids and getting to know your friends in a new way.

Who secretly loves taking selfies? Who has a competitive streak you never knew was there? Who has an hilarious laugh? Find out all this and more on a Saturday afternoon to remember!

Happening 6-7 August between 1pm and 4pm at the Canberra Glassworks, 11 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston.

CANBERRA BABY & BEYOND EXPO

Canberra’s parenting event of the year is bigger and better than ever before, bursting at the seams with all the latest in products, services, support, advice and entertainment for you and your family.

The Saturday program features all kinds of advice for expectant parents, and those with newborns – baby sleep expert Sophie Acott of Happy Baby Sleep, nutritionist Kate Freeman on feeding healthy kids, calm parenting guru Tracey Anderson Askew and more.

Then come back on Sunday for a super special treat for toddlers and older children for the PEPPA PIG STAGE SHOW, exclusively for expo shoppers. The Baby & Beyond Expo features exciting and innovative brands from around the country – as well as lots of invaluable extras such as babywearing advice and support, a Babies R Us Pram Run and children’s interactive areas.

The two-day extravaganza gives Canberra families the chance to browse, try and even buy direct from manufacturers, as well as retailers never before seen in Canberra. It gathers amazing services, from pregnancy and birth support right through to playgroups and health services.

OPENING OF HARRIS SCARFE AT CANBERRA OUTLET CENTRE

Harris Scarfe is launching at the Canberra Outlet Centreon Thursday 4 August at 9am, and there will be a launch event in Centre on Saturday 6 August to celebrate! From 11am- 3pm the Centre will be giving away $5,000 worth of gift cards, exclusive offers and there will be in Centre performances including barbershop choir, face painting and dancers.

From 11am- 3pm the Centre will be giving away $5,000 worth of gift cards, exclusive offers and there will be in Centre performances including barbershop choir, face painting and dancers.

ART M16: ARTISTS AND WORKSHOP OPEN STUDIOS

Have you ever wanted to explore an artist’s studio? Canberra’s art community is famously tight-knit and characterised by its participation and inclusiveness.

In that spirit, the studio and workshop artists of M16 Artspace open their doors to the public on Saturday 6th August from 12 – 4pm. Visitors to M16 can enjoy a coffee; a sausage from the BBQ and a tour of the facility to chat to artists working in their studios. A microcosm of the wider Canberra art community, M16 Artspace houses 31 professional artists’ studios and five community workshops including: The Canberra Art Workshop, the Hands On Studio, the Watercolour Group, the Artists Society of Canberra and Studio Map, which offers classes for children and young people.

Happening Saturday 6 August from 12pm until 4pm at M16 Art Space at 21 Blaxland Crescent Griffith, Canberra. Official Opening at 12.30pm by Gai Brodtmann MP, Member for Canberra.

CANBERRA ROLLER DERBY LEAGUE IS BACK!

Canberra Roller Derby League (CRDL) is back on Saturday 6 August. The Red Bellied Black Hearts will take on the Brindabelters in Game 4 of the 2016 Canberra Roller Derby League home season.

The Hearts opened their home season with a win over the Surly Griffins in Game 2. The experienced Bambi von Smash’er teamed up with the Hearts’ new blood Rolene Misfit to produce powerful and consistent jamming that allowed the Hearts to leap away in the second half. They’ll be looking to produce more of the same against the Belters.

They breed them tough in the mountains though, and the Belters aren’t likely to give in so easily. The Belters’ formidable pack includes Boudica and Stone Jett who, in their last game against the Black’n’Blue Belles, held the Belles’ jammers to a single point whenever they got onto the track. The Hearts’ jammers are going to have to work hard to find a way through.

So come and join CRDL for some world class roller derby action right here in Canberra!

ARAB FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA

The 13th annual Arab Film Festival Australia returns in 2016 with a fusion of contemporary and traditional works in Arab cinema from Australia, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Arab Film Festival Australia represents diversity in arts and culture. This year’s line-up offers insight into how religion can impact love and relationships, as well as the struggles and sometimes humorous side of customs meeting modernisation. From comedy to classic road trip, limited love to a deeper exploration of culture, the AFFA program presents inspiring and thought-provoking stories.

Happening from 5-6 August at the National Film and Sound Archive. Click here for more information: www.nfsa.gov.au

FASH N TREASURE MARKET

Fash N Treasure (FNT) is a Canberra based Fashion Market specialising in new, vintage and recycled clothing and accessories. The market also hosts collectible items including books, dvds, vinyl records and household items.

THE BIRTH OF WHITE AUSTRALIA: PETER FITZSIMONS IN DISCUSSION

Noted author and media commentator Peter Fitzsimmons will lead a discussion on race relations in the last century in Australia, using Phil K Walsh’s film The Birth of White Australia (1928) as a starting point.

Phil K Walsh was most likely trying to emulate DW Griffith’s, Birth of a Nation (1915) with this crude, racist and often incoherent backwards narrative through Australian history.

Walsh particularly focuses on portraying the anti-Chinese Lambing Flat riots of 1860-61, with the action stopping for speeches about the need to keep Australia ‘white and British’.

Happening Sunday 7 August 2pm-5pm at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, McCoy Circuit, Acton.